The journey of what ended up being one of the first-ever bigenital/nonbinary confirmation surgeries, June 2015, from Day One 'till now. (Occasional dong photos ahoy! 18+ users only, please.)
Tag: phalloplasty
You never forget your first sounding.
Mine came at my appointment with my surgeon today, and was… surprisingly painless! I know, right? I was all set to hear horror movie noises come out of my mouth, and nope– he already had the length of it lubed up and pressed down through my dong without me feeling anything more than a mild tightening at the base.
Bad news is, the sounding treatment didn’t unblock the scar tissue that’s in the way of my urine stream, so I have emergency surgery scheduled for Thursday in the early afternoon. My surgeon’s going up my urethra with a tiny camera and a wire, so he can scrape away the blockage where he finds it.
Day 101.
Was put on painkillers to numb the pain problems I’ve been having while urinating lately. (Like, “not even realizing I’ve been drooling and crying until I’m done peeing” levels of pain.) As it’s iodine-based, this has turned my output bright neon orange. It doesn’t even show up in photos how bright orange this looks.
I fly to San Francisco tomorrow to see my surgeon Tuesday, who can give me some answers about this whole business. Wish me luck that it won’t take much to fix, yeah?
Huh. Well.
Bit of a setback last night. I’d been having some mild pain when peeing for the past week and a half or so, but the UTI test I took came back negative, so I didn’t think much about it. Then Friday night rolled around, and my pain when urinating jumped from a 2 or 3 on the pain scale to a 6 or 7, along with a greatly reduced stream.
From what the symptoms are pointing to, I might have developed a partial urethral stricture, meaning my dong is trying to “heal” itself by scarring up the urethra and making it that much harder to pee through it.
The ER staff confirmed I still *can* void my bladder, pain notwithstanding, so I’m not in any major danger. (Thanks, ridiculous pain tolerance!) They’re trying to treat the problem with antibiotics first, hoping it might just be a UTI that’s making my bladder spasm when I try to pee. Even though they agreed that it very well might be a stricture. They wanted to make sure I’m not playing an ace when a two will do, basically.
Aaaa, can you believe it? It’s already been three whole months since I first got my phalloplasty!
While I couldn’t find any party hats tiny enough for Spot to celebrate the occasion properly, I’m instead offering a photo retrospective showing the then-and-now of the surgery.
* THE MAIN EVENT, aka SPOT *
^ THEN: Three fistulas opening at different times, all underneath the head, made urination tricky. Marker lines left on my dong from surgery team looked a little awkward for the first couple weeks. Stitches everywhere.
^ NOW: Fistulas have healed! Yay! Urine stream has healed… a little oddly, veering waaaay over to the left, but it does so in a predictable pattern, so it’s not any trouble to correct for. Stitches have faded to a birthmark shade of light purple. No skin bubbles left underneath the shaft between stitches. The tip’s gained some scruffiness from arm hair growing back in.
Overall, my dong even got a seal of approval from my general MD back home during my annual physical exam a couple weeks ago! She was all kinds of impressed.
* THE RUBBER CHICKEN ARM *
^ THEN: Looked like nothing alive. Had the sickly sweet smell of
wound dressing and disinfectant. Needed at least five minutes to
unbundle all the bandages and dressings to reveal itself to the world
and possibly terrify any children/onlookers. Healed with such thick
scarring at the wrist as to cause me to lose most of my hand/wrist
mobility for some time.
^ NOW: Much more healthy-looking in its color and overall appearance. Regular hand therapy has returned hand/wrist motion nearly back to normal, with some wrist stiffness and a slightly swollen/reddish hand. Still terrifies small children if left uncovered. This Halloween opens up a whole universe of possibilities.
* THE LEG *
^ THEN: Sticky gummy hell for the first week, then itchy flaky hell for the next two. Had to be kept constantly bandaged, so as not to soak anything laid over it. Made sleeping at night… problematic.
^ NOW: Has healed immensely! No drippage, stickiness, or shedding snow-like skin flakes anywhere for months. Barely even looks like Rocky Horror Picture Show lips anymore. More like a rectangular mild sunburn.
* THE SEROUS FLUID LEAK *
THEN: Scourge of daily living from five days after surgery through ‘till very recently. Needed bandaging at all times, lest it soak through whatever I was wearing and make it look like I’d pissed all over whichever car seat I was riding in.
NOW: Killed in Vietnam. Or healed itself out of existence. (I always get those two confused.) It will not be mourned.
* CONSTANT URGE TO WHIP SPOT OUT AND URINATE ON ANYTHING WITHIN RANGE *
THEN: My immediate giddy thought whenever walking past anything standing still: “I could pee on that now. Should I? SHOULD I? I TOTALLY CAN!! Wait no that’s probably a bad idea…”
NOW: I have somehow not racked up any public indecency charges. This baffles me. I had no idea my willpower could hold out for this long.
* OTHER THINGS I CAN DO NOW THAT THREE MONTHS HAVE PASSED *
– Carry objects over 25 pounds! Yay, I get to… start taking out the trash every week again. Hm. (Still, yay!)
– Accept penetrative sex with my original plumbing (or as I call it, the Warp Zone)! [NOTE: I had the okay to be on the penetrating end of penetrative sex a month earlier, with the downsides that (A) without an inflatable rod put in surgically, I’d be nothing but floppy, so (B) I’d probably have to double-bag Spot with a couple of condoms to attain a hope of being rigid enough to put it in. The More You Know!™]
Here’s to another three months, and then another, and another, and so on! [blows party horn]
So the *bad* news is, for some reason, I’ve been called “sir” ONCE over the past two weeks of social interactions among folks who don’t already know me. I have no idea why, but after a friggin’ *phalloplasty,* WOW does that sting.
Add to the pot the fact I found two co-workers of mine refuse to go into the men’s room when I’m in there, and we have a Not Happy Gerbil Indeed™.
The co-workers’ll get pointed out to HR as soon as the department’s open tomorrow, but in the meantime, some good news! Know what I can do now that I couldn’t just a few days ago? Go on, guess. :3
I can hold a full fast-food drink cup in my donor-side hand with no support or bracing from the other side’s hand at all! Pinky up, like I’m used to, no less.
AND and and. I can fall sleep on my stomach again! I was wondering if that ability would ever come back, given the tenderness of what’d be being squashed underneath.
Give and take, eh? Give. and. take.
Expect a super-phototastic 3-month anniversary (monaversery? …whatever.) post tomorrow!
Day 89.
Siiigh. *Right* as I was about to step through the door to work, too. This is why I carry around at least three extra shield liners and a spare pair of boxers and pants at all times.
(NOTE: my issues with bladder control go *years* previous to the phalloplasty, so if you’re planning on having the surgery done, this shouldn’t be as much of a concern unless you ALSO have a history of bladder-holding weakness. If you’re like me, and would have occasional accidents before the surgery: that issue’s not gonna get any better after all the parts downstairs have been shuffled around.)
As requested, so delivered! Here’s the hand to my donor arm at about 2 ½ months post-phalloplasty, along with a brief walkthrough of the exercises that made it able to move easier.
I wish I was Tumblr-savvy enough to know how to reply to multiple Anons at the same time on my phone, but these pics are for the two of you who wanted proof that I’m “dual-wielding” as far as genitalia.
(Also, for the Anon who phrased it like that, I’m pointing and yelling NERRRRD at you as much as I can for my own self getting the reference in the first place.) :3
Day 71.
Ding dong, the leak is dead!
Which old leak? The freak-y leak!
Ding dong, the wicked leak is deeeaad~!
I’m calling it. It’s been a full week without anything oozing from the serous fluid hole, meaning that FINALLY, after over 2 full months (since Day 5!!), the Leak’s ever-runny reign of terror is at an end!
Chinchilla Meat 